I hope this page remains interesting for those of you who take the time to read it. I seem to be repeating the same basic story line all across this country – we bike from one friend to another while in between having many strangers show us such kindness that we are blown away by their generosity. Fear not, that story line continues all the way down the Washington Coast and into inland Oregon, our trip continuing to work out so well that wondrous events begin to seem routine. Still, each friendly, smiling face gives a welcome lift to our lives on the road.
Other than hospitality, the story continues to be about rain. We got over the Rockies and Cascades before the snow fell by riding an unusually late fall, but we started pedaling the Pacific Northwest just in time for the first rain storms. (People keep saying, "If you had just been here last week, you would have had great weather.") Since leaving Seattle we have been on the bike 11 days and have been rained on for 9 of those. Sometimes it's rained all day, sometimes just a little, sometimes a downpour and at others a drizzle, but wet every day.
All this water necessitates changes in our riding style and schedule. Biking in the rain on wet roads means we cannot draft off of each other so much (imagine spray from a back bicycle wheel hitting your face for hours!), which means that we expend more energy individually instead of pooling our collective strength and so go slower. We also must wear our rain gear (waterproof pants and jacket), which means that we get hot and start to sweat quicker, so we have to go slower to avoid overheating.
The constant rain also forces us to bike fewer hours in the day – not only does it get dark sooner, it's also mentally wearing to ride through raindrops for hours. Thus we are ready to get off the bike after 3 or 4 hours instead of going for 6 to 8 hours like we did in good weather. Often by 3 or 3:30 we are ready to take the first good place we find for the night and get settled before it gets dark at 4:30 or 5. Luckily we haven't had to pitch our tent in the rain yet – either people have taken us in or we've found some kind of a roof or partially enclosed shelter to settle in for the night. So despite the rain, we adjust and continue to ride. One more challenge met.
11/9, day 82: Glen and I poke our heads outside the door of our Forks apartment refuge and find the ground inconclusively damp and the sky mostly gray. As we are eating the last bites of our scrambled eggs, we suddenly realize the sun is shining. Begin to pack hurriedly but quietly, trying not to disturb our host Rich who is sleeping late this Saturday morning. Then, just as we have our bikes all loaded and ready to go, it starts to pour. Faced with a choice between starting the day in a downpour and watching college football for a bit, we choose football. Meanwhile, Rich wakes up and joins us for TV and chatting. The rain slackens and we say goodbye and skedaddle, reluctant to leave but knowing we must. The rain picks right back up again. Stop at Thriftway grocery to get some food, since it looks like there is not too much civilization south of Forks. Talk to some people – including a guy from New Zealand who just did some bike touring in Europe – while we sit at a picnic table and wolf down yogurt, poptarts and bananas, tanking up for a long slog through rain (it's still coming down hard). Though we picture ourselves riding through downpours all day, the rain lets up and even stops for a few 15 or 20 minute periods. We are happy for those brief respites.
Some highlights from the day: the sun peeps out for 30 seconds and Bessie the cow gives the 3-toot celebratory honk; have our first ocean sighting at Ruby Beach; two women in a car with a kayak on top smile at us and say "we bow to you"; get to see an owl up close as he perches by the side of the road on top of a headless duck. Disappointments – we ride right past the entrance to the Hoh Rain Forest (too wet for side trips, we decide); Glen has a flat tire just as he is thinking about how fortunate we've been not to have any flat tires in bad situations (luckily, though, it wasn't raining just then). Around 4 we are ready to take the next available shelter. Suddenly there is an elementary school with a large roofed outdoor play area; we are delighted. It's a Saturday night so we know there will be no school in the morning, but just to make sure we're cool we wander over to a little group of houses nearby. A knock at a door and we find someone who teaches at the school, says we can sleep there no problem. We spread out all our wet stuff and even find two chairs to sit on while we cook and eat, happy to be in a dry place.
11/10, day 83: Find that an outside door to the "Boy's Locker Room" is unlocked, so we take our morning toilet there, thankful that our trespassing does not set off any alarms or sirens in the building. Today we are happy to be biking in short periods of rain rather than short periods of not-rain, a slight improvement over the day before. Pull into the town of Humptulips (yes, that's a real town!) at about lunch time, find a church where people still linger from the morning service. They welcome us in and we drink their tea and coffee and hot chocolate and chat with them while eating our customary peanut butter and honey sandwiches (yes, pb&h still tastes good after all these months!). Around 4 roll into Aberdeen. Glen keeps thinking he has a friend in Aberdeen, so we pedal up a steep hill to the local hospital to try to find her. Turns out she doesn't work or live there anymore, so back down the hill and directly to the task of finding somewhere to stay for the night. Begin looking for churches, and after a few near misses stumble upon Amazing Grace Lutheran Church where Pastor Bob welcomes us to join them for a bread and soup supper at 6 and vespers (an evening prayer service) afterward. "You guys must have been sent here by someone," he says. We bring our bikes into the fellowship hall and take showers. Soon Ruth and Jake appear bearing smoked salmon chowder, bread, and cake for the supper. We have such a great time meeting, chatting and eating with the 15 or so parishioners who come and are amazed that we have ridden so far on bikes. Great to see a church community where people are working together and having a good time together despite their struggles. After the meal and service John and Joyce Smith introduce themselves to us, explain that they have a small apartment in their basement (usually houses exchange students), and say we should come sleep there. We gladly agree and enjoy tea and cookies before bed while learning about local clam digging and salmon hatcheries.
11/11, day 84: The sun is shining when we get up, so we decide to push for Astoria 80 miles away; after many days of not even going 50 miles, it's time to get somewhere again. Have a great breakfast made by Joyce; they are a retired couple and so have time to sit around the table with us, telling stories about their travels to Russia and about their Russian friends who visited them here during the height of the Cold War. Taste some excellent smoked salmon that they did up themselves. John drives us back to the church where we left our bikes, and we chat with him and Pastor Bob as we pack up. They are glad that we stopped, they say, and so are we. With no rain and a bit of a tailwind, we practically fly up and down hills to the town of Raymond. Feels great to be able to push hard again, though am feeling muscles that I haven't felt for awhile. Stop to eat a bit around 3 on the porch of someone-who-is-not-home. Inevitably, it starts to rain and we reluctantly don rain gear. Astoria is still 35 miles away and we have only two hours of daylight left and now it's raining. After two hours of pedaling the dark is falling, but we top a rise and there is the Columbia River with the lights of Astoria beginning to wink at us on the far bank. Crossing the bridge across the river is epic – by the time we start it's fully dusk, raining, low visibility, gusty headwinds, and no real shoulder across the five-mile bridge. I put my head down and just pedal. Look up every minute or so and the lights are not getting any closer, it seems. Begin to feel some vertigo from the darkness and wind and rain and exertion. After four miles of that we are almost across, but still have to climb a nice-sized hill where the bridge curves up to give space for boats to pass underneath. By the time we finish, it's so dark I can't see much except the white line. Have a phone number to try of an author who lives in Astoria, a friend of someone we met in Aberdeen, but that doesn't work out. Suddenly we are stuck in Astoria, it's dark, raining, and we have nowhere to stay. After checking out an American Legion where aging vets are enjoying a baked potato dinner and the fruits of the in-house bar, we start looking for churches again, pretty desperate for somewhere dry to sleep. I spot a church tower. We pedal toward it and see some lights in an adjacent building. I walk in a door and see a large, wood-floored hall with some tables and some people milling about. As I stand there dripping and forlorn, trying to figure out who I am going to talk to first, a tall man comes up with a smile and shakes my hand. Turns out he is the pastor and, even before I can get through my spiel about how we are on a big biking trip and need a dry place , he invites us in and says we are set for the night. Wow. We dry off then sit down to a supper of stew and biscuits in the church hall, join everyone else for a video afterward about the Christian faith (it was an Alpha course meeting, a sort of "have dinner and learn about Christianity" thing). Once again people marvel that we found them, and we marvel at our continued good, or shall we say God, luck. Pastor Dave puts us up at his house for the night where we chat with our hosts and have hot chocolate and cookies and launder our five-days-worn clothes.
11/12, day 85: Pastor Dave and his wife did a bike trip up the coast some years ago and had someone take them in out of the blue one wet night; now they return that favor to us. We wake up to breakfast stuff laid out on the counter, a fast internet connection, clean clothes all ready for us. Amazing. So good to find fellow Christians who really are practicing generosity and hospitality to strangers as Jesus taught. These encounters strengthen my own faith and show me that church community really does work. Around 10 we get back to the church, pack up our bikes. A man we had met the night before drops by, gives us chocolate muffins. We say goodbye to new friends (how many times have I written that now?!) and climb the hill to the top of the town and beautiful views of the Columbia River as we ride out. Because of another Pacific storm forecasted to come through in the afternoon, we go inland toward Portland instead of hitting the coast road. I have a flat and we find that we have had so many flats we are down to 4 patches and just a smidge of glue between us. At times we follow the flat river bottom, at times we climb hills beside the river, trying to get in 50 or so miles so we can have an easy day to Portland tomorrow. Stop under a carport in little town of Westport around 2 and eat our chocolate muffins for "lunch" as the afternoon storm from the Pacific catches up to us. Rain gear again. Pulling into Rainier around 3:30 we need food for dinner. Only place available is a convenience store that has few groceries, so we finally settle on some cheap dip and a bit of sandwich meat to flavor our rice, grab some cookies for dessert. After shopping we discuss that we should probably take the first good place with a roof for our night's camp. As we leave the parking lot, glance over and see a church with a large garage-like area, roofed and enclosed on three sides. Look at each other and nod, change course for the church. After a bit of being flustered, the secretaries say sure we can sleep there. We are plum happy tto be out of the rain. Cook our dinner and, with nothing else to do, go to bed around 8.
11/13, day 86: So warm last night that I slept in shorts and a T-shirt – such a nice contrast to our 12 degree night weeks ago by Mt. Rainier. Fairly uneventful biking the last 45 miles to the outskirts of Portland. So nice to be back in a city. Streetcars. Bridges over a big river. Ships pulling in to industrial river ports. Yellow leaves all over on trees and ground and wet pavement. People out walking. Go through a really nice shop and cafe area, then across a drawbridge that shakes as we stop to admire the view just at the crack in the middle of the two bridge arms. I decide I like Portland. Stop at a bike store to get more patches and glue. Find Glen's friends Scott and Lori's house in the Sellwood neighborhood, locate the hidden key and let ourselves in. It's Lori's birthday, so they go out for dinner together. Glen and I walk to a local pizza shop, carry the box "home" and sit on the floor eating pizza and drinking beer – now that's livin'!
11/14, day 87: So happy to be in a comfortable place again with friends that we decide to take a rest day and do some errands, explore Portland. Glen runs around buying various gear items that we need, including a new rain jacket for him since his old one wasn't working so well. I set out to see a city the only way I know how – walk, then walk some more. Enjoy being in a downtown again – people, cars, buildings, cafes. Stop at an art gallery and talk to its bored owner for a bit. Find a beautiful park area lined with arts buildings and churches, a canopy of yellow leaves overhead and a carpet underfoot. Briefly visit Powell's, supposedly the biggest bookstore ever. Find a scone and some raspberry hot chocolate to fuel further walking. End up in a really nice neighborhood on the west hills where my poetic urges lead me to sit on the rail of an old bridge over a four- or five-story drop to the street below. I sit there for about five minutes writing and enjoying the view of downtown buildings when suddenly there is a police officer politely asking me to get down off the rail. I do and we converse about who I am, what I am doing there, I show my ID. Turns out the bridge is a favorite place for suicides, so I guess someone thought I was contemplating sudden, free-falling death. I wasn't, of course, but it did make me think about the structure and rules we live within and under, and how they help or hinder us, care for or wear on us. Back home, Scott and Lori whip up a great meal of pasta, veggies, and Scott-caught salmon. Hadn't been able to be with them much, so enjoy sitting around the table and getting to know them.
11/15, day 88: No rain today! We say goodbye to Scott and Lori as they leave for work, then pack up and get on the road around 10, heading south toward Independence. In Oregon City we stop to take in the sight of an old paper mill along the river – man-made falls upriver, then concrete, rows of corrugated metal sheds and buildings, rusty pipes, strange rumbles, white smoke rising and the water always pouring, pouring, white upstream then muddy down. Amazed at the engineering genius of the place, shake our heads at the environmental blight. Rode well, pushing pretty hard and drafting off of each other down to Salem. In search of a quick and cheap lunch we stop at McDonalds for one dollar sandwiches and fries. We take handfuls of creamer and sugar packets from the condiments counter, pour the sugar into the half and half, then drink it. Yum! Found sleepy little town of Independence and Glen's friend Ron outside by his car. Parked ourselves and our stuff in the garage, met Jessica and peeked at the sleeping baby. Sleeping baby soon awakes to be played with while we eat lasagna and talk and watch sports on TV. Ron and Glen and I go out to a local joint and play pool, find good berry beer, pay for some tunes that take us back to adolescence. Walk home through eerie fog. Excited to be in a bed for another whole night.
11/16, day 89: Chat with Ron and Jessica over a leisurely Saturday morning breakfast, then get ready for short ride to Corvallis. Even though we only bike 20 miles, it of course rains. Still, great to be out and only have a short way to go before getting to our next friend stop. Jennifer comes out to meet us covered in flour from making pie dough and cookie dough and bread (more about that later). We settle in and take showers, sit in the kitchen and chat over popcorn and hot drinks. Devo is home quickly and I meet him before he runs out to a meeting. Glen and Jen go to the grocery store; I am content to relax in a warm and comfy recliner and watch football while it pours outside. Around 5 everyone is home and we sit down to homemade French bread, potato and leek soup, salad, fruits of Jennifer's busy hands. Afterward the guys clean up and then we are treated to warm apple pie with ice cream. Uh-huh, yep, good stuff. (You might notice food becoming a theme of this journal during our stay here. Jennifer is apparently excited to feed us, and we are more than happy to be fed.) Chatting over pie in the living room leads to a rousing game of Settlers of Catan, my first time. I am hooked. Trundle off to bed late. Will stay here a few days basking in the good company and good food.
Keep in touch - Joe (lappjoe@yahoo.com) and Glen (glapp@juno.com)!